Cyprian's Pov
"You failed," Black Tiger murmured, his voice soft, almost reflective. Then, with terrifying speed, his tone snapped into sharp fury: "YOU FAILED! You almost jeopardized our next mission all because you wanted to get your dicks sucked!"
His voice cracked across the air—angry, ragged, deep and powerful. It was the kind of voice that could tear flesh without ever raising a hand.
"You fools want to drag the entire mafia through the mud? You want to kill my father's legacy? I will kill every last one of you myself before I let that happen, you useless bastards!"
The man on the ground kept begging, hands raised in trembling surrender, but Black Tiger didn't even glance at him. His focus shifted to me instead.
I couldn't hold myself upright any longer. My knees buckled, and I collapsed back onto the floor, the searing pain in my gut stealing whatever shred of strength I had left. God, I needed Gestid right about now—or to vomit—or to sleep. My insides were starting to burn. Hot. Twisted. Wrong.
He crouched again, close. His gun was still in his hand, lowered but present. His scent clung to everything. I shook. I could barely breathe. Every inch of the air felt too full of him.
His voice dropped lower—measured, dangerous. "Speak not a word to him again," he said, his tone quiet but deliberate, every syllable pronounced like he was used to people hanging on his every breath. He sounded educated—refined—his accent sharp, clipped, almost like those elite professors I'd seen on TV. Nothing like the thugs around him. He stood out like a sour thumb—only he was their leader. Who was he?
"Let none of you lay hands on him. Let none of you look at him without my permission. He is mine to deal with. This is my only warning. No one will be recruiting men here without me seeing to it again."
He stood then, rising to his full terrifying height. "Defy it," he added softly, "and the consequences will make you beg for death. And death will not come."
No one moved. Not the men. Not the girls. Not me. I stayed there—half-curled on the cold floor, every nerve in my body screaming.
He looked down at me, a small, unsettling smile touching his lips. "You heard that? You're mine to deal with. Personally."
His words—the way he said mine—burned under my skin. I didn't even fully understand it, but it lodged somewhere deep in my chest, cold and sickening.
"This sort of arrangement," he continued, voice sharpening again, "will never happen again. This mission was a failure." He turned to the others, his fury crackling like fire. "If you can't get a woman to fuck you willingly, even with all the money you make here, then you don't deserve your cock sucked!"
The venom in his words twisted my stomach worse.
Then—he turned back to me. Stepped closer. I felt the edges of consciousness slipping away—my body too hot, too cold, too broken to keep upright.
"Look up," he ordered softly. And somehow, through the blur, the pain, the terror, I did.
"Please help us," Nina begged somewhere close, her voice cracking. One of the men moved to hit her—
"Didn't we tell you not to speak?"
"Leave her," Black Tiger—no, Lion—cut in sharply. "Step back."
The man obeyed instantly. Did White Lion perhaps want all three of us?
"Fucking go away. All of you. Enjoy your break today before I change my mind." His command was cold, effortless. The men started filing out, all except one—the one who had been silent behind him this whole time, like a shadow.
"Find women that want you. Prostitutes. Your girlfriends. Whatever," Black Tiger muttered. He turned to the silent man. "Kirian. Take the girls to the guest house. Don't let anyone have access to them. Feed them. Tomorrow, we'll send them back to their parents and call the journalists."
"No… no, please…" I whimpered, trying to pull away. "Let me go with them. Please. I'll behave. I swear… I swear—" The words tumbled from me as I crawled weakly to his feet. But my voice was drowned by his presence—by the immensity of him, the weight of him.
I swallowed hard as the urge to throw up came again, burning through me. My vision blurred. My head spun. Then he came to me, and his voice was cold as ice. "Shut up."
I was just about to pass out. The edges of my vision flickered black. I could barely see.
He lifted me like I weighed nothing—off the ground, cradled as if I were made of glass. I expected his hands to be rough—to grip me the way a monster would. But they weren't.
They were warm. Firm. Gentle. And that made it worse.